The golf truce reaches the US Open

The Armistice US Open begins this Thursday (Movistar Golf, 17:24 Thursday and Friday and 21:00 Saturday and Sunday) on the North Course of the Los Angeles Country Club. The year’s third Grand Slam is contested amid reverberations from a surprise deal between the PGA Tour, the European circuit and LIV Golf, a Saudi capital project that handed out millions to dozens of players and opened a rift. Some signed stratospheric contracts while banned from traditional calendars. Until two weeks ago, peace was announced. Allegedly, everyone benefits from the deal, except for the pros who gave up their juicy contracts in order to be loyal to the regular tournaments that are now punishing them. There will be no future bans for either player and, instead, they have rejected sky-high offers to join the Saudi circuit.

The Grand Slams have become neutral territory since the start of the golf war. Well, its organizers are not contentious circles. So they will face each other again this week. It is the first major one held in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in 28 years.

And until the match starts, the golf truce has occupied the debate at the US Open. Rahm, loyal to the PGA Tour but not belligerent toward wayward pros, admitted some of his teammates felt “a little betrayed” by the deal reached “without consensus” and without being informed.

“It’s not easy for a player who was involved [en el PGA Tour], like many others, wakes up one day and sees this bomb. That’s why we’re all in a certain state of uncertainty because we don’t know what’s going on,” explains Rahm, who won the 2021 US Open and the Masters this year. And he adds, in a series of players like the world number one, Scottie Scheffler or Colin Morikawa, that there are still “too many questions to be answered”.

Rahm, like Scheffler, has already competed as an amateur on the US Open host circuit. And they like it, despite the weight.

Rahm is not the only Spaniard in the tournament, where Sergio García, Pablo Larrazábal, Álex del Rey and David Puig also compete from Thursday.

Commissioner, sick leave

As the US, European and Saudi circuit deal is analyzed, one of the negotiators most questioned for a radical change in attitude, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is relieved for a moment. On Tuesday, it was announced that he was stepping down from his duties indefinitely due to health issues.